


Of Lightness and Gravity

by gwynseren



Category: A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel, French Revolution RPF
Genre: French Revolution, M/M, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 14:00:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20949503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwynseren/pseuds/gwynseren
Summary: In which Max longs to embrace lightness, but Camille is gravity.





	Of Lightness and Gravity

Of Lightness and Gravity

Maximillian Robespierre slides somewhat awkwardly onto plush, grey leather seats, closes the door behind him and clicks in his seatbelt. Reaching into the barely-there pocket of his skinny jeans, he liberates his phone. The distance from the saloon on the Rue de Rivoli – where they often ended up after the business of the Third Estate was closed for the day – to his apartment on the Rue de Saintonge was 2.5 kilometres: that gave him a carbon footprint of .001: he would donate five euros to the Go Fund Me for Plant Trees. That should offset this Uber journey.

Max would have taken the Metro – or walked, even, which is what he would most prefer – but his mother had begged him never to do so ‘at this time of night’ and his sisters supported her belief that the streets of Paris became overrun with rapists and thieves and attackers the moment the clock past the midnight mark, and Max could just see their faces if they were to find out that he had ignored their most earnest concerns for his safety and _walked_ home. His attempts at explaining to them that Uber was basically a form of modern-day slavery - where drivers went uncompensated for periods of sickness, weren’t given any medical insurance or even minimum wage – as well as being a corporation rife with claims of harassment, sexism and assault – _in addition to_ being founded on the principle of driving down the cost of the market essentially decimating the taxi industry and the jobs it provided – apparently stood for nothing. People know all of this, and yet they _still use Uber_. Max closes down the Go Fund Me and scrolls across to Twitter on his iPhone.

_Our principle responsibility in life is to each other and the fair treatment of all citizens, despite whatever may be most convenient for us, the individual _he tweets.

It’s the same reason why people keep going back to Starbucks, Max realises. Sure, most people want a planet that is still viable _tomorrow_, but they want their coffee for _this morning_ more. And that’s exactly why Max finds himself in this Uber, on this day; because the immediacy of peace with his mother _right now_ holds greater weight over him than the fate of the traditional French taxi driver’s job six weeks from now.

_Modern life is far too transient _he tweets next.

He feels like he is finally beginning to relax, at last. Alone like this, his mind is free to drift to where it really needs to be: contemplating what is important without the incessant din of other people drowning out the sound of his thoughts. When he had been a very small child in the _Lycee Louis Le Grand_ and attending to matters of science, he had been mocked relentlessly for asking _why_ when it came to gravity. _But why is gravity? _Of course, what he had meant was _why must gravity be_, which is not a question of science but of philosophy - and that is why no one had understood him. What Max meant was; why can I not be free to pursue a life of pure, intellectual thought without the constant intercession of _you must eat, Max_ and _you must attend the cafes, Max_ that continuously drag me back down to earth with its noise and its problems, just like gravity. It is one of the reasons he helped to form the Jacobin’s Club; not just because austerity, the far right, climate change, immigration and social justice are Very Important Problems, but also because liberating the people from them would mean that he would finally be free of gravity and then nothing could prevent him from reaching enlightenment.

_I long to fully embrace the lightness of being_ he tweets.

Max loves twitter: words were never so fully accessible.

He pretends that he doesn't actually mean _his_ words.

Just as he feels he is moving from relaxed into the possibility of actually enjoying himself, Max’s phone buzzes. A wave of disappointment and then nausea rolls over him; he _had_ thought it was a little too easy when he’d left the saloon. No one had stuck their talons into him, no one had insisted he stay a little longer.

But that _didn’t_ mean that they were going to leave him alone, did it?

Reluctantly, Max minimises Twitter and checks his notifications. He has a direct message on Instagram. They all might think of him as slightly behind the language of the times – simply because he knows how to properly construct a sentence – but Max knows what _sliding into the dm’s_ means. He taps the little arrow icon and the message pops up on the bright glowing screen of his phone.

It’s from Danton.

_I have taken control of history with my bare hands. These are large hands you see before you, Max_.

There’s a picture that accompanies the text; a picture of hands spread out across the bar and a pint glass full of beer. Gnarled, scarred hands. The hands of someone who has fought life and won.

It doesn’t escape Max that _somebody else_ must have taken the picture of those hands.

It strikes Max as very bold of Danton. History is not the act of one man; there is no such thing as destiny and it’s hardly like George-Jacques Danton is singularly behind everything they are trying to accomplish. Max is momentarily confused; what does Danton mean? Is it a threat? Is this what people use direct messaging for? Is he being cyber-bullied? What does Danton want from him?

Max closes Instagram and re-opens twitter.

_We individuals are but the servants of our causes, no man is the author of his own ideology _

Max isn’t going to reply to Danton. Instagram is a platform for pictures, not words.

His phone buzzes again.

This time Danton says: _Camille Desmoulins likes my hands_ and then Camille’s SnapChat pops up on his phone and it’s a video of Camille, looking vacantly into the phone’s camera, and there is a hand enmeshed into his untidy hair. The background noise in the video is of a party in full swing and whoever is holding Camille’s phone (Camille? Someone else?) nearly drops it, but then Camille’s face is back in view again only this time his eyes change, like he’s suddenly come to life, and they flash wickedness and he breaks out into a wide grin and a quick, shy, flushed giggle. Then the video is gone and Max is staring at Danton’s DM again.

Max coughs and adjusts his glasses. He shuts Instagram and looks out into the dark night as the streets of Paris flash by him. He wonders if it is ethical of him to give this Uber driver a lower rating when it is his own friends who have spoiled it for him. It’s Danton’s fault. He shouldn’t be like that with Camille. Max worries that Camille will eventually bruise under Danton’s rough hands. Max doesn’t want Camille to bruise; but what frightens him sometimes is that he doesn’t think Camille would mind.

It takes a bit longer this time, a few more seconds as Max imagines they are waiting to see if he will reply or not, but then his phone lights up again: buzz buzz. He was expecting as much.

Danton’s DM opens up on the screen and Max reads: _I have cheated death you know. _

And then another one, straight after: _I ate the bull that trampled me_

Max imagines it is some kind of brag: I ate the bull that trampled me. He thinks that to Danton, life is just one bull to eat after another; a parade of bulls to the slaughter house, kicking and snorting and very nearly pounding the life out of him, but not quite. Danton eats them and part of their giant bull soul becomes enmeshed with him and each time he becomes bigger. Max has always felt that Danton is more a force of nature than a person; when he thinks of him, he doesn't see the frame of a man with a large, intimidating face and eyes that look straight through you, but rather he feels an overwhelming presence like a great thick shadow (rather absurdly, always in a top-hat, which Max considers should be rather comical, but that does nothing to dispel the grandeur of Danton's presence in his mind). He doesn't frighten Max, but he does _concern_ him, the way a Pitbull who is kept on a tight leash concerns him, or like the way in which the people of all nations have suddenly decided they want complete fools to lead them concerns him. _Ok_, he thinks, _but really?_

_I am a vegetarian _Max tweets.

His phone buzzes absurdly quickly after that one, and Max briefly wonders if he has become predictable.

_Camille Desmoulins is not a vegetable_ Danton's DM says.

Max blushes and is then very cross with himself for blushing: thankfully there is no one around to notice. No, Camille is _not_ a vegetable, but that is not what Max meant.

Camille's next Snapchat is a series of images: Camille sitting on the bar, surrounded by faces; Camille tucked under someone's imposing shoulder; Camille putting one arm into his coat, his face flush with wine and excitement, his hair tussled and cascading over the one side; Camille's (Max guesses) shoes. One by one they light up the screen of his phone and then vanish, gone forever. Max will never get them back; they are as rare and fleeting as sunlight dancing on the waves of the Seine. He has such a young face, Max thinks, boyish and carefree. A fascinating face, one that hides secrets behind its boyish charm; lines of intelligence and glimmers of depth that you can see sometimes, if you are lucky enough to catch him in the right light and at the right angle. That is why each vanishing photograph is such a loss to Max; there has to be so much more to find in them, but he never gets the chance. Of course, that is exactly why Camille favours Snapchat. Not twitter, like Max, nor Instagram, like Danton. Snapchat is Camille coming close enough so that you feel like you can touch him, only to find that he had never even been there to begin with.

Max begins to suspect that they are toying with him. He doesn't know why, but he gets a sudden flush of anger. It's _collage_ again; he is trying to achieve something that is actually very simple, and all they can do is stare and point and laugh and gawk like he is somehow so very amusing, and so very odd and not exactly real. _Thing_, they used to call him. But Max is not a Thing or even a thing, without the capital, and he’s never really understood why they think he is.

Like now, for instance. They think he is repressed and frightened of his body; a modern _Hurluberlu _who faints and clutches pearls and is hilarious only because people laugh _at _him; a prude. Max can’t help it if he blushes, or that he isn’t an exhibitionist, or that he prefers to keep such matters private to the extent that other people don’t believe that he even has them. But Max does have them. He knows as well as anyone else does how Camille’s lips are cool like a fresh spring pool bubbling clean and young from out of deep, mossy earth. He just doesn’t see why he needs to tell everyone about it; as if it couldn’t be real until they were informed. Max knows that this is nonsense, but it doesn’t stop him from feeling the sting of their teasing.

Danton doesn’t wait for Max to tweet this time; he is getting impatient. He goes straight to the DMs and says:

_I am a beast in the sack_

It’s direct and it’s confident and it’s stated like a fact, much like _two plus two equals four_ or _space is continually expanding, meaning that the space between all things is getting larger and larger and we are getting further and further apart each day from everything that exists, even our own atoms_. It makes Max imagine a literal beast in a sack – not an appealing image. He has heard the stories, of course. Danton’s prowess would make even the most hardened Parisian prostitute blush and it is not difficult to find things out where there is a need to know. Max has always felt he has a need to know; the character of the men of the Jacobins club is a part of their credentials, as important as any _maîtrise_. But Danton’s sexual appetite does not impress Max. He thinks of that beast – a buffalo, maybe, or other wild cattle – lost inside the many folds of a giant, grey, coarse sack of the kind used to transport potatoes and thinks _how ridiculous_.

_We must transcend our primitive natures and rise above base desires _he tweets, and Max genuinely believes – despite his mother and the clubs and his peers and Uber and the Establishment - that so far he has been doing an excellent job of doing exactly that, until his phone buzzes again.

This time the DM reads only _Camille Desmoulins _and that is enough, because this is where Max knows that he loses.

It’s why Danton has been parading Camille in front of his nose for this entire Uber journey.

Because Max _is_ free, except for Camille Desmoulins. Because he _is_ a Thing, absurd and alien in all his ways, except for Camille Desmoulins. Because he is above it all, he is afraid of his own body, and he does only care for a life of intellectual enlightenment, except for Camille Desmoulins. Max loses because Camille _is_ gravity; how could Max ever wish to be free of it now? Camille is the reason why Max knows he has a body and that he is afraid and hopeful and vulnerable and excited and too hot and eager to be alive, all at once. Camille Desmoulins is not only the anchor that keeps Max from floating away; he is the reason Max doesn’t really _want_ to anymore.

The Uber finally comes to a stop. Max knows that his account is linked to his bank, but it still feels odd to exit the car without handing over any money. He still remembers the days of needing to have enough cash to pay for a taxi; he’s been told that makes him a _millennial_. He steps out into the cold night air, realising that he _is_ a rather solid presence on the pavement, despite it all, and there in front of the door to his apartment, swaddled by the dark night, are Danton and Camille.

Immediately Danton bursts out laughing at Max’s confused face. He sweeps forward, his body rippling with his laughter, and takes the key’s to Max’s apartment from out of Max’s hand. Of course – Max hadn’t even noticed how long his Uber journey had been; far too long for what it needed to be. They must have paid the driver to keep circling the block or something; they knew Max would be far too engrossed to notice the same streets slipping past his window.

Danton has unlocked the door to Max’s apartment and is now disappearing into it, his booming laughter fading slowing within the illuminated passageway. Max knows what this means; what Danton wants, Danton gets. It is a rule as much as any physics rule of the earth or the sun or the universe. Max wouldn’t really mind – there’s a _reason_ why Danton has so many lovers, after all – but there was such a thing as loyalty, no matter how old fashioned that may sound.

But Camille is there too, pressed up against the wall of Max’s building. Max can smell him more than he can see him; he smells like the sea, like ultimate liberty. Camille tips his head forward and his golden locks catch in the lamplight. He catches Max’s eye and something stirs deep inside him.

“Max.” he says, and it’s all he need to say. Max is immediately drawn to him; gravity pulling him across all of time and space, pulling him back, linking him with Camille like some eternal tether. Max rushes at Camille. He cups his beautiful face with his hands and kisses him deeply half in shadow, half in the light of the street lamp. Max melts into him and somehow both loses himself and finds himself, all at the same time. Eventually Camille pulls back, but he takes hold of Max’s hand.

“Come on,” he says quietly with a wry smile.

Max allows Camille to lead him away from the wall and into his apartment, just as he allows Camille to remind him that he needs to eat something or to get a haircut or buy new shoes; because Max is only alive in his body because of Camille, and therefore he trusts only Camille to teach him how to use it.


End file.
